


Halves

by pink_shoes



Series: Awake [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-11-29 05:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11434572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pink_shoes/pseuds/pink_shoes
Summary: Mega and Giga are enjoying an idyllic childhood on post-war Cybertron. Raised by Shockwave and his conjunx, the two have no reason to suspect that there's anything particularly notable about themselves.But as the vorns pass, the two slowly begin to realize that all is not as it seems. The memory of something--or someone--is looming over them, casting a shadow wherever they go.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I said this was going to be a oneshot and I lied.

Shockwave was anxious about introducing Mega and Giga to Umbra. Moonracer did not share his apprehension, but Moonracer had never met Overlord and did not truly understand what he had been capable of. 

“They cannot be left alone with him unsupervised,” Shockwave insisted. Mega and Giga might have been innocent in the eyes of the law, but he was not taking any chances with the sparkling he had carried to emergence. “Not now, and not ever.”

But as the two crouched close to Umbra, there was no malice or cruelty in their energy fields. Giga reached out to pat Umbra’s helm carefully, moving his servo as though he was afraid Umbra might suddenly lunge forward and bite him.

“Doesn’t he talk?” Mega asked, turning to Shockwave. 

“Not yet,” Shockwave said. “His processor is not complex enough to handle language files yet.”

Giga was still petting Umbra like he was a turbopuppy. “He’s nice,” Giga announced. “Much nicer than our other brother.”

That took Shockwave by surprise. “Your…other brother?” he repeated. “Who are you referring to?”

Giga suddenly looked deeply confused, as though Shockwave had asked him to solve a complex mathematical equation. Mega was staring at him curiously as well. 

“I…I don’t know,” mumbled Giga. He crossed his legs and stared intensely at nothing. “I…think I got mixed up. Never mind.”

* * *

Mega and Giga were not truly twins, but it was easier to refer to them that way and only a handful of mechs knew the truth. They certainly acted like twins, always within arm’s reach of one another and occasionally finishing one another’s sentences.

Shockwave had been watching them obsessively, but he could not see anything in the two that hinted at a darker past. If he had not been told the truth by Megatron, he knew he never would have guessed there was anything unusual about them. 

There had been a little bit of media interest in the two when they’d first arrived on Cybertron. Megatron had given the press a story about how the twins were orphaned sparklings of a dead Decepticon soldier from one of the splinter factions, and it seemed everyone believed it. The Senate knew the truth, as did Ratchet, but the twins’ medical file at the hospital was sealed. Nobody was going to accidentally stumble upon the information. And Mega and Giga did nothing to dispute these claims, because they didn’t know any better. They were not even aware that they were not truly twins. 

The medics put Mega and Giga’s ages at about two hundred vorns, old enough to be enrolled in school. Shockwave was trying not to panic at the thought. Who knew what dark impulses would manifest once they were no longer under Shockwave’s watchful optic? 

In the deca-cycles before the two were set to enroll, Shockwave made a point to bring them all over the city, trying them in as many different situations he could think of, searching for warning signs in their behavior. But though the twins—and even he was starting to think of them as twins now—had difficulty with impulse control, he was constantly being assured by medics and other parents that their behavior was not abnormal, and they would ‘settle down’ as they matured. 

The Armistice Festival would be the ultimate test of their self-control. Overstimulating to even the most docile of sparklings, Shockwave knew that Mega and Giga had never experienced anything like this before in their short existence. He was fully prepared to cut the night short if the two showed any signs of trouble. 

Just before they were about to leave, Moonracer pulled him aside. 

“Shockwave,” she said quietly. “You’re not being fair.”

Shockwave was taken aback. “What do you mean?” he asked. 

“To Mega and Giga.” She glanced in the direction of their room, where the two were scrambling to put their toys away. “They haven’t done anything wrong, but you’re treating them like potential criminals. You don’t think they’ll pick up on it sooner or later? If you don’t want them to turn into Overlord, you can’t treat them like Overlord.”

Shockwave’s arms tightened around Umbra, ready to defend his actions, but then he realized that Moonracer’s words did have merit. The twins might be loud and prone to impromptu wrestling matches, but they had not acted maliciously at any point. Mega had even been bitten by Diabla, but her only reaction to that had been a surprised shout, followed by hysterical laughter. 

“You may be right,” he granted. “I…I apologize.”

Moonracer smiled gently and touched the side of his helm. “I know you just want to keep everyone safe,” she said quietly. “But maybe…maybe things will be okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

The twins were enjoying all the excursions Shockwave brought them on. Nothing had been better than the festival, but there seemed to be no end of things to see on Cybertron, whether it was buildings or monuments or mechs with interesting, colorful frames. 

Shockwave was always saying that the twins needed to spend more time in public, around other mechs. This usually meant getting to eat out, so the twins were not complaining. The best days of all were when Shockwave left Umbra at home and they had his attention all to themselves. It wasn't that they disliked Umbra, because they didn't. They just liked not having to share. 

Shockwave brought them to a small, informal place that sold standard-grade energon. It wasn’t too different from the energon they had at home, but the tables were covered in shakers filled with all different sorts of crumbled minerals and alloys for seasoning, and so that made it better. 

“You will be beginning school in a few solar cycles,” Shockwave announced just as their energon arrived. “There are many sparklings in your age group, and you must be careful not to harm any of them. Do you understand me?”

Mega and Giga both nodded. They were accustomed to such warnings, though they had become less frequent in the past few solar cycles. 

Mega reached for a shaker filled with rust flakes just as Giga tapped Mega’s pede with his own. She glanced over at him questioningly, and he jerked his helm towards the door, where a mech had just walked in. Mega peered around her brother for a better look. 

The mech Giga had indicated was massive, one of the largest they had seen since coming to Cybertron. He had some sort of war frame, but she did not get the sense that he was a Decepticon. He had an interesting helm design and he was so cute that Mega wanted to _rip his faceplates off with her dentae_ —

Mega gave herself a little shake. Where had that come from?

Shockwave flicked his helm-fins curiously in her direction. “What is it?” he asked. 

“Who is that mech?” asked Mega quietly. “The blue one?”

Shockwave turned his helm quickly, then looked forward again. “Fortress Maximus? He is a commander in the planetary guard. Why?”

Mega and Giga just went on staring. 

“Stop that,” hissed Shockwave. “You are being rude.”

In unison, the twins dropped their optics to the energon cubes in front of them. Shockwave went on talking about their schooling, but Mega was not listening, and she knew Giga was not either. 

When she was certain that Shockwave wasn’t paying attention, Mega risked another glance at Fortress Maximus. This time, he noticed her staring, and gave her an awkward smile that made her spark flutter.

“Mega!” snapped Shockwave. “Leave him alone. I mean it.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” whined Mega, looking to her brother for support. 

“Drink your energon, unless you’d like to go home already,” warned Shockwave. 

Mega hunched over, drawing her wings up high and grumbling at the injustice.

* * *

The classroom was large and brightly lit, its walls covered in completed assignments and colorful hand-drawings. A tall, bubbly grounder with bright red plating introduced herself as Ruby, and explained she would be their primary instructor. She seemed nice, though maybe a little bit too nice. She made Mega and Giga stand up at the front of the classroom and addressed her students.

“This is Mega, and Giga,” said Ruby, touching each of the twins on the tops of their helms in turn. “They’ve come to us from very, very far away. Why don’t we all introduce ourselves? I’ll start. My name is Ruby. I’m originally from a planet called Dross, but I came to Cybertron five hundred vorns ago when the war ended.”

“Oh!” A young seeker in the front row raised his servo and waved it around frantically. “Me first!”

Ruby laughed. “All right, go ahead.”

“I’m Stormwarp,” said the seeker, fluttering his winglets. He reached out and took the shuttle beside him by the servo. “And this is Crossfire, and he’s my best friend.” There was a hint of aggression in his field, like he thought the twins might want to steal Crossfire away. 

“Okay,” said Giga.

“I’m Doubletake!” cried a white and black sparkling with tiny doorwings. “And I’m the best in music class so don’t even try!”

A blue grounder sparkling with a sleek, expensive-looking frame shot Doubletake a skeptical look. “Excuse me,” he said. “But we haven’t gotten our marks yet. So until then, you can’t claim—”

“Nobody asked you, Overclock!” cried Doubletake. 

“Enough,” said Ruby firmly. “Triage, why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“Um,” a red sparkling looked up from his datapad. “Okay. Um. I’m Triage. I’m…” he glanced around the room, then up at the ceiling, as though it could supply him with a fact about himself. “I might want to be a medic, maybe.”

Mega felt a little twinge of disdain at the words, though she could not say why. 

“I’m Andromeda!” cried a white grounder femme. “Let me take a picture of you!” Without waiting from a response, she leapt out of her chair and removed a camera from her subspace pocket. “Smile!” she commanded. 

Mega and Giga glanced at each other. Mega hoped her smile wasn’t as forced and awkward as her brother’s. 

“Um,” said a little red sparkling. Blaze. He was Diabla’s cousin, Mega remembered. Shockwave had brought them over to meet them all a few solar cycles ago. “Hi. I’m Blaze. And you know me. And Flareup, too.” He glanced over at his half-sister. 

“And me!” yelled Overcharge. The young triple-changer had also been introduced to them earlier, as well as Concussion and Requiem and Onrush. The three conehead seekers were near enough in age that they could have passed for triplets if they’d wanted to. 

“All right, let’s all focus,” said Ruby, resting one servo on Overcharge’s helm. “Who hasn’t had a chance to talk yet?”

The rest of the sparklings in the class introduced themselves one by one, listing off their designations and hobbies so quickly that the twins could barely keep track of them all. Then, once all the introductions were done, Stormwarp raised his servo. 

“Yes, Stormwarp?” asked Ruby.

“Are you guys really twins?” Stormwarp looked from Mega to Giga and back again. “I’ve never seen twins with completely different frames from each other.”

Mega and Giga glanced at one another. Until that moment, they had never thought much about the fact that Mega was a jet and Giga was a tank. It was simply the way things had always been.

“Even though they share a bond, twins are still unique individuals,” explained Ruby. “While it’s more common for twins to look alike, it’s not impossible that their independent sparks chose different altmodes. Military sparks have a particularly wide variety of frametypes to pick from.”

“I have a question too,” said another sparkling, a heavy-framed mech named Rampart. “If you were with the Decepticons, did you ever fight in battles?”

“Yes,” said Mega. 

Ruby laughed. “Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “No commander would put sparklings on a battlefield. Why don’t you two take a seat, and we can start the lesson.”

* * *

Ruby told them not to worry about what they did not know, but there seemed to be no pattern to what subjects Mega and Giga were and were not familiar with. Mathematics were almost embarrassingly easy, whereas the sciences were completely alien to them. History was an odd patchwork of obvious and completely unfamiliar.

Mega didn’t care very much for reading or writing, but she very much enjoyed the accounts of battles long past on alien worlds. She thought they sounded like wonderful fun, even though Ruby repeatedly emphasized that war was a bad thing. Especially fascinating were the tales of the ancient gladiatorial arenas, where mechs fought in single combat for the right to be called the champion. 

Giga had a little more patience for reading. He was particularly curious about the science behind the processor, the subtle complexities of the Cybertronian mind. Mega thought that sounded boring, but she could not miss the fascination in her brother’s optics when Ruby passed around diagrams of a brain module. 

After their noontime energon, Ruby brought the class outside to play for a half-cycle. That was fun, until Rampart shoved Giga hard enough to send him sprawling on the ground. He claimed that it had been an accident, but the twins could sense the insincerity in his apology. Shockwave’s endless warnings were the only thing that stopped them from breaking his nasal ridge, even though it would have been very easy. 

The twins were proud of themselves for that. 

At the end of the day, the sparklings stood outside the school and waited for their creators to come retrieve them. That was when Mega and Giga had their first look at the older class, though they were not sure if two seekers and a civilian could really be considered an entire class. 

“Look,” said Stormwarp, pointing at the seekers. “Rain Dust and Solar Flare. They’re twins like you.”

“Why are they glowing?” asked Mega. 

“Their sparks are special,” Crossfire explained in that calm, patient voice of his. “They can turn sunlight into energy. Shockwave made their carrier that way, and they got the ability too.”

Mega and Giga studied the seekers as they waved goodbye to their pink companion and shot off into the sky. They could not help but be a little envious of their ability to fly.

“So, you were really out in space?” Stormwarp asked. “With the Decepticons?”

“Yeah. I guess so,” said Mega, glancing over at her brother. 

“What was it like?”

“Umm,” said Giga. “Well. We don’t remember too much.”

“What?” Stormwarp looked shocked, and some of the other sparklings gave them odd looks as well. “Why not?”

“We got hurt,” explained Giga. “Right before we went to Cybertron. And. We lost our memories.”

“Oh. Well. How did you get hurt?” pressed Stormwarp.

Mega and Giga both looked at one another. 

“I think…we forgot that, too,” said Giga. 

Stormwarp was starting to look skeptical. “Are you sure you're really from outer space, then?”

“Stormwarp!” scolded Crossfire. 

“What!? What!? You were thinking it too!”

“Well,” interrupted Doubletake. “What _do_ you remember?”

_They remembered the roar of a gladiatorial arena, packed with more mechs than it was ever intended to hold. They remembered watching a fight, a silver mech who bested every opponent that challenged him. They remembered falling in love._

“Uh. Hey. You okay?” asked Crossfire. 

“We have to go now,” said Giga as Moonracer drove up to the gate. He grabbed Mega by the wrist. “Bye!” 

Faintly, from behind them, Mega heard Stormwarp say, “They’re kinda weird.”

As the twins approached, Moonracer opened up her side door so they could climb into her backseats. 

“How was it?” she asked. “Did you have fun?” 

“Well—” began Giga thoughtfully.

“We didn’t kill anyone!” yelled Mega eagerly, her spark swelling with pride. 

Moonracer laughed through her speakers. “Such high standards you’ve set for yourselves,” she teased. 

“We didn’t hit anyone, either,” said Mega. “Even though Rampart is a big ugly stupid slagger.”

“Don’t say that word,” ordered Moonracer. “You’re far too young to be swearing. Did you make friends?”

“Maybe,” said the twins in unison.


	3. Chapter 3

The twins quickly fell into a routine. School wasn’t their favorite place, but Ruby’s enthusiasm usually made up for the more boring subjects that the Senate had apparently decided were important. 

The other sparklings were nice to be around, too. Overcharge was probably their favorite. He was similar to the twins in temperament, and there was something untamable about him that the twins appreciated. If a plan was too risky for Mega and Giga, Overcharge was always happy to carry it out in their stead. 

These plans usually centered around stealing energon sweets from the jar on Ruby’s desk, which required a degree of tactical thinking that Overcharge simply wasn’t capable of. In return for a solid plan of action, Overcharge was happy to share whatever he stole with the twins.

Overcharge further proved his worth when, upon being caught with his servo in the jar, he took full responsibility for his actions and said nothing of Mega and Giga’s involvement. From that moment on, Mega and Giga knew that he was not just an underling, but an equal.

At the end of the school cycle, Moonracer or Shockwave would come to bring them home. If it was Moonracer picking them up, they would drive, and she would let them have a snack before they started their homework. If it was Shockwave coming to get them, they would take public transit and were not allowed snacks until they had already started working. 

In the evenings, Moonracer would let them select a datapad and they’d curl up on either side of her as she read aloud. Their favorite stories were legends and adventures, featuring terrible monsters and exhilarating battles. Shockwave always observed this quietly from the other side of the room, rocking Umbra gently in his arms. 

About a lunar cycle after they enrolled in school, Ruby brought her entire class to the Iacon Museum. Mega and Giga loved seeing the old, powerful warframes and enormous weapons. They had begged Shockwave and Moonracer to bring them back again and again until all the archivists knew their designations.

When their guardians could take no more of the museum, Megatron and Soundwave sometimes came to escort them instead. Though Megatron was openly uncomfortable around sparklings, he still answered their questions and occasionally told them stories.

One of the earliest memories the twins had from after their accident was of Megatron, speaking to them and asking them questions. They knew that they had known him even before that, but the details had been lost to them. They’d known Shockwave, too, back then. They didn’t know _how_ they’d known either of the mechs, because Ruby said the Great War had ended five hundred vorns ago and the twins were only two hundred vorns old, but they didn’t dwell on this. 

Ravage, the eldest of Soundwave’s creations, seemed to be around more often than not. Even when Megatron and Soundwave were nowhere to be seen, she was always lurking around like a mysterious sparkling-sitter. The twins quickly got used to the little black cyber-cat following them every time they went out and, after only a few lunar cycles, felt neglected if she wasn’t nearby.

The first few stellar cycles went by quickly. There was so much to do, so much to learn, and so many people to meet. Ruby seemed determined to fill the mysterious gaps in their information banks, and was always assigning additional work so that they would be at the same level as their classmates before it was time for their third frames, their adolescent upgrades. 

Mega and Giga’s class was made up exclusively of second-frames, and the upgrades were a frequent topic of discussion among the sparklings. Third-frames were fully able to transform but lacked the power and finesse and critical reasoning skills of final frames. Most importantly, third-frames had far more freedom than second-frames. Once upgraded, they would be allowed to go out by themselves, whether it was to the corner store or the Iacon museum or just to school and back. They could stay out later, and wear cosmetic-grade paint, and, and…do whatever else they wanted to do. There seemed to be no drawbacks to upgrading. 

Mega knew she wanted to keep to her current schematics for a jet, and Giga wanted to stay with his tank altmode, but he also insisted that he wanted antigravs for his pedes so he could fly in root mode. Overcharge, a triple changer like both his creators, was set to have both a shuttle and a tank mode. 

The twins were irrationally jealous of this, even though Overcharge promised he’d give them rides whenever they wanted. They could not articulate why they were so affected, as they were not completely sure of the reason themselves. But whenever they looked at Overcharge’s blueprints for his upgrades, they could not help but be overcome with the feeling that they were missing out on something.

* * *

“They’re taking Black Shadow out of stasis.”

Mega and Giga both looked up from their morning energon at the words. They were only three-quarters awake, with the sun just beginning to slip golden light through the windows. Mornings were usually quiet and peaceful, and the twins didn’t fully online until it was time to leave for school. 

Shockwave usually started the day by reviewing the news, and sharing any particularly interesting headlines with Moonracer. The twins usually did not find it very interesting, but today was different.

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Moonracer warmly. “Everyone deserves a second chance. And now that Megatron is here, perhaps he can be reasoned with.”

“Leave him in spark stasis,” opinioned Mega. “He’s a jerk.”

Both Moonracer and Shockwave turned and stared at her as though she had just sprouted an additional helm. 

“Excuse me?” said Shockwave at last. 

“Leave Black Shadow in spark stasis,” said Mega, sticking one digit in a drop of spilled energon and dragging it around the surface of the table to make interesting, sticky patterns. “He’s a…dumb…stupid…boring…” Mega looked up in time to see Moonracer with a look of shock on her faceplates, and Shockwave with his helm-fins pressed down as low as they could go. 

“Mega,” said Shockwave in a rather cold voice. “You have never met Black Shadow.”

“Oh,” said Mega. She looked down at the mess she’d left on the table. “Can I have a cleaning cloth?”

The twins had completely forgotten about the incident by the time Moonracer came to retrieve them from school later that solar cycle. But within a few moments of driving, the twins realized that they were not going home. 

“There’s someone Shockwave and I want you to meet,” Moonracer explained. “You’ll like him a lot, he’s very nice.”

“Did we do something wrong?” asked Giga, picking up on the tension in her energy field. 

“No, not at all,” said Moonracer. “We just want to make sure you two are developing the way you should be. We probably should have done this when you first arrived, to be honest.”

Moonracer drove to the Iacon hospital, but she said that they weren’t going to be visiting Ratchet, the medic that had seen them when they first arrived on Cybertron. Instead, she brought them to a different part of the building, one that they had never seen before. 

It was quieter than the main part of the hospital, and decorated differently, too. It reminded them more of a home than a hospital. Moonracer guided them to a small, secluded office where a tiny orange mech waited for them. 

“Hello,” said the small mech, smiling warmly. “My name is Rung. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

Mega and Giga both glanced at each other without moving. They sensed that they were in the presence of someone very, very dangerous, though they could not say why. It was difficult to imagine a mech _less_ intimidating than Rung. But something in their memories was telling them to be careful. Very, very careful. 

“It’s a nice day,” said Rung. “Why don’t we go outside?”

“Moonracer comes too,” said Mega, taking their adoptive creator by the servo. 

The courtyard was empty, and Mega and Giga released Moonracer’s servos to run around and explore. There were tables and chairs, and interesting crystal growths, and decorative statues to climb on. After about a breem, Moonracer called them back to sit at the table. 

At the table, across from Rung’s knowing optics, the twins suddenly felt anxious again. He seemed to sense this, though, and unsubspaced a box of sweet energon sticks for them to share. The twins still didn’t trust him entirely, but it was at least enough incentive to not run away. 

“Did anything interesting happen today?” asked Rung. 

Mega and Giga exchanged looks, their mouths still full. 

“I don’t think so?” said Giga cautiously. But he knew that Rung would not be asking if nothing had happened. He wracked his processor for anything that might have prompted Ruby to call Moonracer and tell her to bring them to Rung. But today had been truly unremarkable. 

“That’s alright,” said Rung warmly. “How are you enjoying school? Moonracer tells me you’re making friends.”

“Overcharge is our best friend,” said Mega. “We thought Concussion would be second-best, but he mostly plays with his brothers. Most of the others in the class are okay.”

“Is there anyone you don’t like?” asked Rung. 

“Rampart is the worst.” Mega made a face. “Shockwave says not to hit people but I think if we hit him just once, he’d stop.”

“Perhaps. But what if he hit you back?” asked Rung. 

“There’s two of us and one of him. We’d win,” said Mega confidently. But Giga was eyeing Rung suspiciously again, and she fell silent, knowing he wanted to speak. 

“We never hit anyone,” said Giga seriously. “We might have wanted to, but we didn’t. If anyone says we did, they’re lying.”

“I don’t think you hit anyone,” Rung assured them. “If you did, there’d be no denying it. You two don’t realize it, but your frames are very powerful. What might be a warning punch from your perspective could put a classmate in the hospital.”

The twins looked at each other, both thinking of the painfully deliberate way that Crossfire always moved when he was playing with their smaller classmates. It was as though he thought they were all made of glass. They’d privately mocked him for it, but now they wondered if Crossfire knew something they did not. 

“But don’t worry,” added Rung. “I’m not worried about that right now. Your behavior has been exemplary, by all accounts.”

“Then why are we here?” Giga asked. 

“I’ve received over some reports from your instructor, Ruby,” said Rung. “Do you like her?”

“Well, we _did_ ,” muttered Mega, incensed at this perceived betrayal. 

“What do her reports say?” asked Giga. 

“Here, I’ll read some aloud for you.” Rung removed a datapad from subspace. “Let me see…oh, here’s something I marked… ‘Mega and Giga demonstrate an extremely nuanced knowledge of wartime history. Their accounts are heavily biased and sometimes missing large swathes of information, but they clearly received a detailed education at some point before coming to us.’”

The twins looked at one another, unsure if this was positive or negative feedback. Rung went on reading.

“‘Sometimes I show the class pictures of important Cybertronians during the Great War. For any given picture, there’s a good chance the twins will be able to tell me the subject’s name, his city-state of origin, and give a brief editorial regarding whether the mech in question was stupid, annoying, or both.’”

Giga was leaning towards negative. 

“That’s not a big deal,” said Mega defensively. “We’re good at names. We’ve always been good at names. Sometimes we know the names of mechs before Shockwave even tells us—” She stopped, realizing how odd her words sounded. 

“It is a little weird,” admitted Giga quietly. “I mean…it makes sense that we’d know some things. We were on a warship for vorns before Megaton found us. But…why are we remembering all these little things that don’t mean anything, instead of the mechs who taught us and took care of us?”

Rung looked sympathetic. “Processors are very strange things,” he said. “It’s impossible to predict what the outcome of damage will be. But I think it sounds like you are adjusting very well.”

“Even after what Ruby said?” asked Giga. 

“I don’t think Ruby thinks there’s anything wrong with you,” said Rung. “She was just surprised, as anyone would be. Mechs are going to be surprised when they hear you speaking of things you couldn’t be expected to know, especially with such authority.”

“We don’t mean to scare anyone,” said Giga. “Most of the time, we don’t know that we know things until something reminds us.”

“That’s understandable,” said Rung. “But perhaps, instead of sharing your memories aloud, you should write them down. And then you can discuss them later, together, without worrying about what anyone else might think.”

“We don’t care what anyone thinks!” cried Mega. 

“Yes we do,” Giga reminded her. 

“Just try it,” said Rung encouragingly. “You might even find you enjoy the process.”

The twins looked at Moonracer. She smiled at them both. 

“You two have been doing very well,” she said. “Don’t worry about this. Nobody’s mad at you. We just want to make sure that everything in your processors is working right, because we honestly don’t know what we should be expecting.” 

“I haven’t heard anything today that’s cause for concern,” Rung affirmed. “But if anything changes, you can contact me at any time. Or if you recall something that troubles you…but nothing like that has happened, has it?”

The twins looked at each other. 

_They remembered a branding iron searing a mark into their chestplate._

“No,” said Mega. “Nothing like that.”

He knew they were lying. He had to know they were lying! Rung _always_ knew when they were lying! …even though they had never met him, and therefore never had the opportunity to lie to him before. Giga suddenly had a headache. 

But instead of pressing the subject, Rung smiled brightly as though nothing was amiss. 

“I am glad to hear that,” he said.

* * *

Over the last vorn, Ruby’s teachings had drifted away from Cybertronian anatomy and physiology and towards other, less interesting subjects. As a result, Giga started borrowing texts from the library so he could learn the subject on his own. Most of the texts were, admittedly, far too advanced for him. But he was still determined to try.

Mega could whine and complain and call him boring as much as she liked, but Giga was genuinely curious about neuroscience. Every day, as soon as their homework was done, he would sit in a sunny spot and struggle though another chapter.

He was especially interested in mnemosurgery, the practice of literally reaching into a Cybertronian’s mind. The Enforcers sometimes used it, to see a crime as it happened through the optics of someone who was there. Other times, medics like Rung would use it to understand their patients better—though Rung said that he never did such things, and in fact was not even licensed for it.

But what interested Giga the most was the idea that it could be used to recover lost memories. Maybe, if he kept studying, he could eventually learn how to retrieve everything that he and Mega had forgotten about their past. 

Giga looked up from the advanced textfile and pushed it aside, rubbing at his forehelm. Had anyone written mnemosurgery texts meant for younger mechs? All of his datanet searches pointed to no. 

Giga twitched his digits, imagining long, silver needles jutting from them—

_A mech smiled up at him, but there was something dangerous about his smile, something cruel behind his yellow optics._

_“Not like that,” he chided, gripping Giga’s wrist gently and adjusting the angle. The needles gleamed as the other mech guided them…_

Giga ripped free of the memory, his vents straining and optics filled with tears. He opened his mouth to call for his sister, but only a pathetic whimper emerged. His tanks were churning, and he was afraid he might purge on the spot. 

But Mega did not need words to know when Giga was in distress. Within moments, she was standing before him and clutching at his faceplates, her optics bright with panic. “Giga!” she cried. “What happened?”

“Trepan,” whispered Giga.

Mega’s optics widened, and he knew that she was remembering now, too. 

“Who…who was that?” she whispered once she was free of the memory.

“I don’t know,” said Giga, hugging his sides. “Maybe our creator? Our real creator?”

For reasons that they were not entirely clear on, the twins had always thought of Shockwave as their creator, and Megatron as their sire, though they knew this was not true. Their real creators had been Decepticons stationed on the _Crown of Stars_. Until that moment, they had not been very interested in their heritage. There had been nothing to be interested in. 

Until now.

“What are we gonna do?” asked Mega. 

But Giga already had an idea.

* * *

“Trepan?” repeated Glyph.

Mega and Giga both nodded hopefully. They had been allowed to go to the museum after school, under the condition that they commed Moonracer at regular quarter-cycle intervals. Anyway, it was not as though they were completely alone. Ravage had followed them all the way to the building, and was hanging around near the entrance now. 

“I’m not familiar with the designation, myself,” said Glyph, moving towards the nearest console. “But if there’s anything about him in the archives, I’ll find it for you. Where did you hear the designation?”

The twins looked at each other, uncertain of how to explain. 

“We think he might be one of our creators,” said Giga at last. “But maybe not.”

Glyph paused, her digits hovering over the keyboard. “Is this going to get me in trouble with Shockwave? That mech is scary.”

“No!” cried Mega. “We just…we don’t want to hurt him. He and Moonracer take care of us. We don’t want them to think they’re not good enough.”

Glyph’s faceplates softened. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see what we can see.”

It only took about a breem for Glyph to come up with an image capture. The mech was just as Giga had remembered, small and lithe, with a white frame and cold yellow optics. At the sight, Giga instinctively reached for his twin. Her servos met his halfway and their digits interlaced. 

“It says here,” said Glyph, “that Trepan of Iacon served the Senate during the Golden Age. But there’s not too much else information, I’m afraid.”

“He wasn’t a Decepticon?” demanded Mega. 

“Not at all,” said Glyph, shaking her helm. “I’m sorry. I don’t think he could have possibly been your creator. My records indicate that he was killed shortly after the initial outbreak of the Great War.”

“Then how can he be in our memories?” asked Giga. 

“I’m sorry,” said Glyph again. “Perhaps…perhaps you saw him in your history texts? The processor can be a funny thing. Sometimes we can get so absorbed in stories that we forget that they didn’t actually happen to us.”

“No,” said Mega stubbornly. 

“Well, the only other idea I have is perhaps it was an unrelated mech with the same designation,” said Glyph. “If you bring me more information, I’d be happy to help you.”

Half a cycle later, Mega and Giga trudged out of the museum with a copy of Glyph’s information saved onto a datapad. 

“Well,” said Giga at last. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out myself once I’m a mnemosurgeon.”


	4. Chapter 4

When Triage mentioned that his creators had gifted him a basic, medical-grade scanner in celebration of his creation-date, Giga was immediately interested. 

Triage didn’t need much incentive to show off his new toy, and, at Giga’s prompting, brought it in to school the very next day. At the midday break, while the other sparklings ran around the playground, Triage let Giga examine the tool. 

“It’s not very fancy,” Triage admitted as Giga turned it over in his servos. “It’s about the most basic model anyone’s ever made. But my creators say I should get familiar with it. So…” 

“Let me scan you,” said Giga eagerly, pointing the device towards Triage’s spark chamber. Then he looked down at the readout. “You’re a civilian-spark grounder frame,” he informed him. 

Triage laughed. “Anything else?”

“You don’t have any viruses, I think,” said Giga. He had no idea what half the words on the screen meant, but he knew that a medic’s scanner would beep and flash if it picked up a virus or injury. “Um.” He scrolled through the data, and paused on a two-dimensional render of Triage’s spark. “Your spark is blue.”

Mega came running over to see what was going on. “Giga!” she cried. “What are you doing? What’s that? That’s boring. Let’s race!”

Unthinkingly, Giga pointed the scanner at her. Triage’s vitals disappeared, replaced with Mega’s. He looked down at the scanner and frowned. 

“Hey, Triage?” he asked. “What’s this mean?”

Triage came around to look over his shoulder. Then he frowned too. 

“Hey!” said Mega, alarmed at this reaction. “What’s wrong? Am I dying?”

“Nah,” said Triage, taking the scanner back. “’S just glitching.” He gave the device a good shake. “I bet they just bought me a cheap one thinking I’d break it anyway—”

“Triage,” interrupted Mega, with a distinct edge in her voice. “What does your scanner say?”

“It thinks you’re a triple-changer,” said Triage. “Like I said. Glitching.” He scrolled through the data. “Woah. Seriously glitching. Look at this.”

Giga looked. The screen was now showing the render of Mega’s spark, green and half-moon shaped. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“There’s no twin bond,” said Triage. “Her spark is the right shape, but it should also have a ring of light around it—that’s the twin bond. She doesn’t have that.”

“How is that possible?” asked Mega. 

“It’s not you, it’s the scanner,” said Triage, sticking it in subspace. “Maybe it just needs charging. It was fine yesterday. Don’t worry about it. You’re not dying. I promise. Besides, you’d know if you didn’t have a twin bond. You wouldn’t be able to talk to each other and stuff.”

The twins exchanged glances. 

“Talk to each other?” asked Giga. 

“Like with your sparks,” said Triage. “Not literally. But you wouldn’t be able to send each other feelings and, and spark-pulses and stuff.”

Giga said nothing, and Mega didn’t either. He had never needed to send Mega his emotions. His emotions were hers. Their sparks echoed one another. Maybe that was what Triage meant?

Triage ran off to join one of the games, leaving Mega and Giga behind. 

“What does he know, anyway?” muttered Mega. “He’s not a twin. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.”

* * *

“Something weird is going on,” whispered Mega.

Giga onlined his optics, and was greeted by the familiar shapes of their bedroom at night. Only a few inches away, close enough to reach out and touch, Mega was resting on her own recharge slab. She stared up at the ceiling, her optics casting her faceplates in crimson light. 

“What do you mean?” asked Giga. 

“I don’t know,” said Mega. “You know. You should know. You’re the smart one.”

Giga knew. Sometimes they could go entire stellar cycles without anything odd happening. Sometimes six odd things happened in a single afternoon. There was no pattern to it, it was utterly unpredictable. 

“Maybe we should tell Rung,” said Giga, slowly. 

“No!” hissed Mega, rising up a little to turn and look at him. “No, no, no! He’ll use it against us!”

“I—I know, but…he hasn’t actually done anything bad to us, Mega.”

“Not yet!” Mega whispered fiercely. “Because we haven’t given him the chance!” 

Giga wanted to argue with her, argue against his own internal warnings, but he was too tired. He offlined his optics and surrendered to recharge.

* * *

“Okay, but, listen,” said Mega earnestly. “If we hit him once—just once! Then he’ll stop being a jerk, and we’ll stop wanting to hit him. Right? Everyone wins. And then everything will be okay.”

Rung looked a little skeptical. “What if you decide you like hitting so much that it makes it harder to resist next time?”

“That won’t happen,” said Mega confidently. 

“Are you certain? I’ve seen it quite a bit in my line of work,” Rung countered. “That’s why we emphasize nonviolent behavior as soon as new Cybertronians come online. Hitting Rampart might make him stop being mean, but what about when you’re in your final adult frames and your only way of solving problems is hitting? When an adult mech hits someone, it’s called battery, and you can be arrested for it.”

“If that’s true, we should hit as many mechs as possible right now before we lose our chance forever!” cried Mega, throwing herself back in her padded chair dramatically. 

Rung sighed. “What about you, Giga?” he asked. “What do you think?”

Giga had been silent up to this point, gazing out the window and lost in his own thoughts. He gave a little start when Rung addressed him. The twins had been coming to see Rung for stellar cycles now, and were comfortable enough with him that they didn't need Moonracer in the room. Still, they were careful to not give him too much information, especially not about their strange flashes of memories from that seemed to belong to someone else, or their visions of Trepan, the mech they suspected was their biological creator.

“I think you’re both right,” Giga said. 

“Traitor!” howled Mega. She grabbed a decorative pillow and began to beat him with it. 

“I think—Mega—stop—I think Rampart would stop if we hit him. But I don’t think he’s bad enough to deserve hitting. He mostly just says stupid stuff. I think we should save hitting for when things are really, really serious. So when we do, people know we mean it.”

“That is certainly an interesting perspective,” said Rung. 

Mega leaned in to Giga’s audial and raised her hand up to block Rung's view of her mouth. “That means bad,” she informed him, in the loudest whisper in the world. 

“Now, I didn’t say that,” Rung admonished. 

“Lots of people don’t say things,” said Mega. “But they’re still thinking it.”

“Maybe,” said Rung. “But you can never really be sure what they’re thinking, can you? You can only guess.”

Giga looked down at his servos, imagining needles protruding from his digits. He _wished_ he could tell what mechs were thinking when they looked at him. It would make everything so much easier.

“I don’t think you’re bad,” said Rung. “But you do, don’t you?”

Mega crossed her arms and glared out the window, embarrassed that he had read her so easily. 

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” asked Rung. 

“Well…” Mega’s cheeks puffed up in frustration as she realized her worst exploits weren't actually that impressive. “That’s not the point! The point is, we could do something bad if we wanted!”

“So could I,” said Rung. “So could anyone.”

“No,” said Mega. “You couldn’t. Some people can be bad and some people just can’t and _you_ just can’t.”

Giga was inclined to agree with her. Even if Rung did manage to work himself up to do something bad, he would probably spend the next few stellar cycles feeling terrible about it. Not like Mega and Giga. 

They hadn’t done anything bad yet, but they knew there was something bad in them, like a little kernel of bad code. It was easy to keep it pushed down, hidden away, but it was always there. And if the day ever came that they had to let it out, they knew they would not even hesitate.

And then what? 

Giga did not want to find out. Fortunately, it seemed Mega didn’t either. Life was good, even if things were sometimes confusing. They liked living with Shockwave and Moonracer and Umbra. If they did something bad (something really bad, something that made punching Rampart look like a joke in comparison), they might get taken away and locked up. 

The twins were certain of this because of one of their earliest memories, when they'd met Megatron for the first time since they were injured. They hadn’t remembered his name, but they had recognized him. Their sparks had brightened with excitement when he entered the room. 

_“And what are your designations?” the mech asked, as if he did not know. As if he did not recognize them._

_Mega was the one to answer him. “I’m Mega,” she said. She looked at Giga. “He’s Giga.”_

_“I see,” said the mech. “And…do you remember anything else?”_

_“We got hurt,” explained Giga, and Mega nodded because it was true. Giga continued, “But the medics fixed us. And now we’re going home.”_

_The mech stepped away from them and went to confer with the medics. Mega and Giga stayed seated on the medical berth, comforted by one another’s closeness._

_“…the senate?” asked the mech._

_“We can’t…twins,” one of the medics murmured in reply. Mega and Giga strained, but they could not hear what else was being said. “Their sparks are…” his voice became unintelligible again. Then: “Do you think the Enforcers would lock up a pair of sparklings?”_

Would the Enforcers really lock them up? Mega and Giga weren’t sure. They had asked Ruby, but Ruby had said that sparklings could not be arrested because they were still learning right from wrong. But medics were smart. 

They would not have mentioned it if it wasn’t a possibility.


	5. Chapter 5

The twins had been in their adolescent frames for almost three vorns now. Shockwave had been dreading the upgrades, as adolescent frames were notoriously difficult for creators to handle. But so far, the worst thing Shockwave and Moonracer had encountered was Mega occasionally skipping classes that she deemed boring or unimportant. 

“Who cares about math?” she’d asked scornfully when confronted. “I’m going to join the planetary guard. You don’t need math to shoot Quintessons.”

“The planetary guard is not interested in soldiers who failed to complete their primary education,” Shockwave had retorted, but he could tell Mega was not convinced of this. 

Mega was also showing an interest in Cybertronian sports, but Shockwave was reluctant to allow her to participate. He could all too easily imagine her getting carried away and accidentally—or worse, deliberately—hurting another player in the heat of the moment. But, at Moonracer’s urging, he had agreed to let her join a basketrek team under the condition that she did not skip another class. 

The sports that Mega was _really_ interested in were full-contact, involving tackling, striking, and Primus only knew what else. Thankfully, there were no teams on Cybertron that would accept an adolescent-frame as a member. Shockwave was dreading what would happen once Mega was fully upgraded, when he could no longer keep her away from all the dangerous things that called to her spark. 

In contrast to his sister, Giga was a devoted student. He read voraciously, as though seeking answers to a question he refused to share with anyone. Though that was not to say Shockwave did not worry about him as well. After receiving his frame upgrade, Giga had grown quieter, more withdrawn. He always seemed to be keeping secrets, even when there was nothing to hide. And he’d declared he was going to learn to be a mnemosurgeon, and nothing that Shockwave said could change his mind.

Both of the twins were, unlikely as it sounded, very good older siblings to Umbra. Now in his second frame, Umbra had his language files and spent most of his time asking questions. It was a stage that most creators found endearing at first, but quickly became grating. But Mega and Giga never shouted at Umbra, no matter how exasperating the constant questions became. When they picked him up, they handled him carefully, the way they had been taught. 

Shockwave still found excuses to hire a sparkling-sitter rather than leave Umbra alone with the twins for an evening, but he thought he was far less anxious than he had been when he’d first brought the twins home. 

Shockwave seldom went into Mega and Giga’s room, but he did now. This was because Moonracer had asked him to purchase more microfiber cleaning cloths. Shockwave had objected, for they already owned many, and earth-made microfiber was not cheap anymore.

“If we own so many, why can’t I find a single one?” Moonracer had retorted. 

“It is the twins,” Shockwave had said. “They use them and never bring them down to be cleaned. I will find a pile of them in their washracks.”

Mega and Giga’s washracks were filthy, as one might have expected from Cybertronians in their third frames. Shockwave made a note to himself to revoke their datanet privileges until they cleaned the place thoroughly. But at least he had no trouble locating the missing cloths—they were all piled up in a small mound in the corner, doubtless breeding interesting new microorganisms. 

Sighing to himself, Shockwave shook out the cloths and draped them over his arm, one by one. When he was nearly done, something caught his optic. An open tube of lip-paint rested on the countertop just in front of the mirror. It was scattered amongst countless other cosmetics, but this one stood out to him because it was a bright and terribly familiar shade of blue. 

Shockwave took the lip-paint with him with him when he left the twins’ washracks, and quietly threw it into the incinerator on his way downstairs.

* * *

Stormwarp was throwing a party, and the entire class was invited, even the mechs he wasn’t particularly fond of. When the twins asked him about this, the seeker reasoned that parties were more fun with a lot of participant, even if some of them were jerks.

Stormwarp’s party was being held at his home, and everyone knew his creators weren’t very strict, so it probably would be fun. When the twins arrived that evening, most of their classmates were already there. Doubletake was in the corner of the room, blasting music from a set of speakers, while Overclock was showing off with some dance moves that he’d learned in his stupid expensive private lessons. 

Stormwarp and Crossfire were dancing, too, but that wasn’t a surprise. They’d started dating the same day they’d received their upgrades. The music was pretty good, but Mega and Giga knew that Overclock and Doubletake would just laugh at them if they tried to dance, so they went over to see what kind of fuel there was. 

Adolescent frames could process high grade in small amounts, but it was very easy for them to drink too much and poison themselves. Legally, they could not purchase high-grade, but consuming it was alright if it happened under the supervision of a fully-formatted adult. Mega and Giga had never been allowed to try high-grade, except a few sips on the day they’d received their upgrades, but they were a little bit hopeful that Stormwarp’s creators might have bought some. 

But when Mega and Giga approached the table full of cubes, they saw all the energon was ordinary mid-grade. Apparently the stories about Stormwarp’s creators weren’t completely true. 

As Mega stood in the corner and sipped at her cube, she realized her brother was scribbling on a datapad again. 

“Can you have fun?” she asked him, even though she knew the answer. 

“I can’t. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough,” he said, raising his voice a little because of the noise. Mega looked at the datapad, and saw it was a list of names and dates. Boring. 

“This again?” she asked. Though she was interested in their origins, she did not share Giga’s burning need for answers. 

“Yes, this,” retorted Giga. “There were seven medics on the Crown of Stars, but not a single one of them can tell me what our creator’s names were, or who took care of us after they died.”

“That was hundreds of vorns ago, Giga,” Mega sighed. “Do you think you were the most important sparkling in the world, that everyone should remember you?”

“On a warship? Yeah. I do,” said Giga. He chewed on the end of his stylus. “I don’t think it’s just us who lost our memories, Mega. I think it’s everyone.”

“That’s crazy,” she said. “Look, I…I agree that something’s not right. But does it really matter that much? We’re not Decepticons anymore, we’re Cybertronians. Moonracer and Shockwave are our creators. Maybe if our lives sucked, I’d say we should try to find answers, but—but things are okay. Maybe we should just be happy we’re here.”

“Don’t you want to know who _are_?” pleaded Giga.

Mega gave him a long look. “I’m Mega,” she said. “And you’re Giga. As long as we’re together, does it even matter?”

“It does to me!” 

“Then ask Megatron. He hasn’t lied to us about anything,” said Mega.

“You know I can’t! If I ask Megatron, he’ll tell Shockwave I was asking questions and you know how Shockwave gets about remembering stuff!”

Mega knew.

“Okay,” she said. “But, can’t the breakthrough at least wait until tomorrow? I want to dance.”

“Go ahead,” mumbled Giga, his optics back on his datapad screen already. 

Mega was offended. Giga almost never blew her off like that. Maybe he really was on the verge of discovering something. But their past was hundreds of vorns away, and the party was right here, right in front of them. Why couldn’t Giga ever just focus on the present? 

With an annoyed huff, she stormed off towards the other dancers. There were enough of them now that Doubletake and Overclock were unlikely to single her out. And if they did, she’d break Doubletake’s speakers on their helms! 

Besides, Overcharge was dancing now, too, and nobody was worse than Overcharge. Even Mega stayed away from him, just for the sake of her pedes. 

The music rose, and Mega lost herself in it. She forgot her awkwardness and danced, her pedes landing with each note. It was almost as though the song was being composed as she danced, for her and her alone. It swirled around her like an embrace. For an absurd moment, she thought that the sound might somehow lift her up off her pedes.

She refused to think of how silly she must look, awkward and untrained, especially compared to the likes of Doubletake and Overclock. She didn’t care what they said, or what their uptight private tutors insisted the correct way of dancing was. She could feel the beat in her spark, and her frame knew what to do.

She was surprised, but not displeased, when Giga joined her. She could sense the apology in his spark, and forgave him immediately. His heavier steps matched hers, even without the twin-bond that they supposedly lacked. But how could they not have a bond, when she knew his thoughts as perfectly as her own? Surely the fact that they could dance like this, unrehearsed and yet in flawless synchronicity, was evidence that Triage’s scanner had been wrong. 

For every step she took, Giga took one as well. When she veered to another direction, he was there beside her. Their digits were entangled, and yet when Mega needed one servo free, it suddenly was. It hardly felt like she was stepping at all. It was more like the room was moving of its own accord, coiling around them like a living creature while they shifted from one position to the next. 

She was smiling at him, she was smiling at herself. She was looking at herself through his optics. She could see herself as he saw her, with her flushed faceplates, her wild optics, her smeared and melting face paint. 

As the tempo picked up, Giga placed his servo around her waist and lifted her into the air. Mega ignited her thrusters just enough to raise herself up, out of his grasp, before she deactivated them and fell back into his waiting arms. 

He spun with her, with the beat, and her pedes found the pattern again. Giga followed her, or perhaps he was leading and she was following, perhaps she was the one who had lifted him, perhaps the song would never end, perhaps the song was not coming from the speakers, but the two halves of their shared spark—

“Woah!” yelled Stormwarp over the music. “I didn’t know you two were a combiner!”

They looked down at the seeker. Why was Stormwarp so small? Why was the ceiling so low? Why…

Nobody was dancing anymore. They had all stopped to stare, murmuring to one another behind their servos. As much as Mega and Giga enjoyed the attention, they got the feeling that something was wrong. 

The song came to an end, but nobody put on another. 

Why…

“Hey, can you hear us in there?” asked Andromeda, stepping nearer. “Guys? Or. Guy?”

They looked down at their servos—impossibly large, the wrong color, and powerful enough to pick up Andromeda and crumple her frame into scrap in a matter of moments. 

No! Why would they ever do that? Andromeda was their friend. 

“Mega? Giga?” Crossfire touched their arm gently. His violet optics were filled with worry. For some reason, they wanted to tell him to keep his half-breed servos off their frame, but they managed to suppress the ugly words. 

“What happened?” they asked. Their voice was smooth, mature, confident. They raised a servo to their mouth and felt soft lipplates. 

“Look,” said Overclock, pulling a small mirror from his subspace pocket and handing it over to them. 

The faceplates that stared back at them were not unattractive, nor completely unfamiliar. They—he? They?—had cold crimson optics, white faceplates, and a distinctive helm design. They touched their lipplates cautiously, disbelieving. 

“This is so cool!” bellowed Overcharge, giving them a comradely punch in the arm. “You’re a triple changer now! Like me! Sweet! Do you—do you have a designation?”

“Yes,” they said. It was right _there_ , right on the edge of their minds, just out of reach but infuriatingly close. “I…I can’t…remember…”

“Oh!” Triage was already moving forward, pulling a scanner from his subspace. “I got this!” But instead of pointing the scanner at their spark, he connected one end of a long cable to it, and handed them the other end. “Put it in your medical access port, in your neck. Your default designation should be in there. I’ll retrieve it for you.”

All optics in the room were on them as they slowly did as Triage instructed. After a few long, long klicks of scanning the screen, Triage beamed triumphantly. 

“Your designation is Overlord,” he said.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also IDK if anyone really cares at this point, but a while back I revised Overlord's first chapter in Awake for the zillionth time. The changes were mostly tonal, but it was something I did that relates to this fic, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention it here.

_Overlord knew that his time on Cybertron was coming to an end. He wasn’t having fun anymore, pretending to be an upstanding citizen._

_He was glad he’d had the opportunity to speak to Megatron one last time. Cybertron was not meant for mechs like Overlord—no civilization was—but Megatron would enjoy it very much. Overlord supposed he could have been petty, and told Megatron of Cybertron’s many flaws, and the little Decepticon remnants out in space. But Overlord felt that he had matured past such things. He would not ruin this toy for Megatron just because he could not have it for himself._

_Overlord was working when he received word of the Sharkticon attack, scripting the memory that his most recent client had asked for. When he was finished, he would upload it to his client’s processor, but that would not be for several days._

_He’d made his business sound so quaint when describing it to Megatron. So harmless, so innocent. The truth of the matter was quite different. Such depraved, obscene requests he received! He loved it. He loved these glimpses into the minds of his fellow Cybertronians. He loved it when the mechs sat across from him and mumbled their requests into their knees, faceplates burning magenta. It was even better than the part when he went into their minds for the upload._

_Upon hearing of the attack, Overlord issued a full refund to his current client with no explanatory note. He shut down his console and stashed as many energon cubes as he could carry into his subspace pocket. Taking one last look around at the office he knew he would never return to, Overlord turned off the lights and walked out the door._

* * *

“Woah!” Overcharge sounded thrilled. “Same altmode, and practically the same name! It’s a sign from Primus.”

“Signifying what, exactly?” asked Crossfire. 

“Huh?” replied Overcharge. 

Overlord turned away from them, processor pounding. 

_They remembered gazing at Shockwave and Megatron through the distortion of a medical containment tube. They remembered their fists smashing through the glass—_

“I have to go,” said Overlord, shoving past Overcharge and staggering towards the door. The other younglings all made sounds of protest, but he knocked their servos away easily. Once outside, they hurried down the darkened streets, not sure where they were going but desperate to be anywhere else. 

Conflicting memories were piling up behind their optics, making it difficult to focus on the real world in front of them. _Fighting in an arena. Working on a falsified memory for a client. Fighting on a battlefield. Rung, Rung—Rung, his optics blazing with fury at something Overlord had said, and Overlord was just shocked that Rung even knew how to yell, never mind the fact that he had probably just set his release date back another ten vorns—_

They leaned up against the wall, venting heavily. 

Whose memories were these?

Both halves of Overlord came to a simultaneous agreement. They pulled away from each other, separating back into their individual forms. Giga staggered for a few steps, then sat down on the sidewalk to hug his knees. 

“What was that?” whispered Mega. 

“I’m gonna call Rung,” said Giga. 

“No!” Mega’s optics flashed with alarm. “Don’t you remember what we just saw?”

“Yeah, I do remember. Rung was mad at us because we said something horrible to him. We deserved it.” Giga began to search through his saved comm frequencies. He had never contacted Rung directly before, but Rung had given the twins his information just in case. “Unless you’d rather call Shockwave?”

Mega pressed her lips together and crossed her arms, but did not reply. 

[Rung?] Giga sent over the connection. [I, we’re sorry to bother you, it’s just—]

Rung’s reply was instantaneous. [It’s no trouble at all,] he said warmly. [I told you that you could comm me whenever you needed, didn’t I? Is everything alright?]

[Something, something happened,] said Giga. [Nobody got hurt! Everyone is okay! We just—]

[What happened?] Rung was still calm, but there was no missing the edge in his voice. 

[It’s…hard to explain,] said Giga. [Mega and I were at a party. We were dancing. And then, we…I think we combined. I think we’re a combiner.]

Rung was silent for so long that Giga was afraid the connection had been cut. Finally he asked, [How many mechs saw you combine?]

[Basically everyone in our class!] said Giga. 

[And where are you now?]

Giga sent him the coordinates. [We didn’t mean to,] he said. [We didn’t even know it was possible. It just happened!]

[Giga,] said Rung, [you and Mega didn’t do anything wrong, do you understand me? I’ve told you this before. You’ve never done anything to make me worry about you.]

[Yes, but,] Giga struggled to explain. [We used to. Before. When we were someone else.]

Rung’s silence was deafening. 

[Didn’t we?] Giga demanded. 

[Stay where you are,] instructed Rung. [I’m going to come and get you.]

“We’re stupid,” said Mega, as Giga ended the call.

“What?” asked Giga. 

“We’re stupid. Megatron was in stasis for five hundred vorns, right? And we were two hundred vorns old when he brought us to Cybertron. We couldn’t have possibly met him before, but we were convinced he was our sire.”

“I thought maybe we saw him in a historical vid or something, and imprinted later,” muttered Giga. 

“We’re not sparklings,” Mega went on. “We’re…we’re _really_ old. We’re so old that…” Mega struggled for an appropriate analogy. “…we’re old. Nobody ever taught us history on the _Crown of Stars_. All that stuff we thought we learned? We knew it because we were there when it happened.”

“So they put us in sparkling bodies,” said Giga. “But why?”

“Cuz we killed a lot of people,” Mega retorted flatly. “We killed a whole lot of people, and we weren’t even a little bit sorry afterwards.”

“Then why didn’t they put us in stasis, like Black Shadow and Sixshot?” pointed out Giga. 

“I don’t know! Why do you think I know?” yelled Mega, snapping at last. “I don’t know any more than you do, so don’t act like you’re so smart—!”

“Okay, okay, just don’t yell!” hissed Giga. “Someone’s gonna call the enforcers on us!”

Mega kicked the nearest wall. 

Still, Giga reflected, something was not quite right. They’d been alive during the war, fighting in battles. That made sense—as a combiner, they would have been a powerful warrior. And then, when the war ended, they’d come to live on Cybertron. Giga had done…some kind of work…something to do with mnemosurgery. 

But Mega was nowhere in his memories. He opened his mouth to ask her—

“Giga? Mega?” That was Rung, hurrying towards them. “Are you alright?”

“You shouldn’t have called him,” said Mega bitterly, her wings flaring defensively. “He lied to us. He pretended like he didn’t know—”

“Should I have called Shockwave?” Giga retorted again. 

“Come here,” said Rung. “Neither of you are injured?” 

“No,” said Giga. “We’re fine. And so’s everyone else.”

“Come with me,” said Rung, reaching out to touch each of them on the shoulder. “We’ll go somewhere private, and you can tell me what happened.”

“Or maybe _you_ can tell _us_ what’s going on!” Mega snarled, ripping away from Rung’s servo. 

“Mega, stop!” cried Giga. “You’re not helping anything! You’re just making it worse!”

“No, she’s right,” said Rung. “We had every intention of telling you when you were fully-formatted adults. Perhaps we should have told you when you received your adolescent upgrades. But you both already carry so much guilt. I did not want to compound it.”

Their sparks clenched at the affirmation that they did, in fact, have something to feel guilty about. But in a small way, it was also a relief. They had spent so much time wondering what they were capable of, what might happen if they discarded all the warnings they had received since they were sparklings. 

“My apartment is not far from here,” encouraged Rung. “We can talk there, if you’re comfortable with that. I won’t contact your guardians until you’re ready.”

It was oddly freeing, in a strange and terrible way. No more would they live in constant fear of the moment they finally snapped, for that moment had already come and gone without them.

* * *

_Overlord wasn’t allowed weapons anymore, but that was a joke, because Overlord was a weapon. Even in his sleek, energy-efficient new frame, he was a force of nature on the battlefield._

_The alien that fought beside him wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but Overlord didn’t mind. He was used to mechs falling silent whenever he was nearby. At least her silence seemed to be a result of her nature, rather than fear._

_Overlord had grown bored of being feared at least two hundred vorns ago._

_He had grown bored of everything._

_Only ripping the Sharkticons in half, one by one, gave him any sort of pleasure. When the last of them were nothing more than a slurry of gore at his pedes, his spark burned with irritation. This was no challenge. A classroom of sparklings would have put up more of a fight._

_When the medic ran up to him, he swung his fist just to see if killing his fellow Cybertronians felt as good as he remembered._


	7. Chapter 7

Rung’s apartment was simple and extremely clean, so much so that Mega and Giga thought it looked like a picture in an advertisement, not somewhere that someone actually lived. 

“Here we are,” announced Rung, locking the door behind them and ushering them into the living room. “Would you like to sit? I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of snacks.”

“’S okay,” said Giga, who honestly couldn’t imagine ever wanting to eat again, from the way his tanks were churning. Mega pulled him onto the sofa beside her, and Rung took a seat across from them. 

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” asked Rung. 

“It was like I said,” said Giga. “We were just dancing, and then we were one person instead of two. And then we ran away.”

“Why did you run?” asked Rung. 

Mega and Giga exchanged looks. 

“I guess…we were confused,” said Giga. “We had all these memories…”

“And nobody would shut up,” added Mega. 

“What kind of memories?” Rung asked. 

“All…pieces,” Giga attempted to explain. “Five klicks of this. Ten klicks of that. Pictures. Feelings. All in a big mixed up pile.”

Rung cycled his vents audibly. 

“Why did we get to start over as sparklings?” asked Mega. “We didn’t agree to that, did we?”

“No,” said Rung. “But it was not meant as punishment. You were badly injured during Megatron’s infiltration of Megaempress’s faction. Your brain module was destroyed. The medics on her ship put you in sparkling bodies because it was the only solution they had, save for letting you die.”

“Our brain modules?” repeated Giga.

“Yes. That is why you lack full recall—”

“No,” interrupted Giga. “Brain module, or brain module _s_ , plural?”

Rung looked confused for a moment, “Why—oh. Oh. Yes. Module. Singular.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mega. Giga looked at her. Looked at himself. 

“We’re not twins,” he said. “We’re not teammates. We’re one mech. That’s why we don’t remember each other. We’re one mech split in half!”

“Your spark was cracked down to its core,” confirmed Rung. “The medics attempted to recombine both halves, but their efforts were unsuccessful. So instead, they placed each half in its own protoform. That is why you have no memories of your early sparklinghood. Such a time never existed.”

“But, before that—” Mega began. 

“Mega,” said Rung. “I understand your desire to know more about your past life. But before I tell you more, I need to be guaranteed that you understand that you are not Overlord. His crimes do not rest on your shoulders, legally or morally. Overlord died on the _Crown of Stars_ hundreds of vorns ago.”

“That’s not true,” said Mega. “When we’re combined, we’re Overlord.”

“I’m sure you resemble him, and you share a designation,” Rung said. “But Overlord was created by millions of stellar cycles worth of experiences. You two lack all but a handful of his history, and the little pieces you do have are without context. It might benefit you to think of him as your creator, rather than a past incarnation.”

Their creator. Giga opened his mouth to speak, but Mega beat him to the question. 

“Who was Trepan?” asked Mega. 

Rung gaped at her wordlessly. It was clear that this was not one of the questions he had been expecting to hear this evening. 

“Well?” demanded Mega. 

“I think perhaps that’s a conversation for another day,” said Rung. “Are you ready for me to contact your creators?”

The twins both shrugged. Rung seemed to take that as an affirmative, and went silent as he made a quick call.

“What’s everyone gonna say?” asked Mega when he was done. “You think Overcharge and everyone are just gonna keep it quiet? Nobody’s gonna want anything to do with us anymore, once they realize who we were.” 

“Are you sure?” said Rung. “How do you think you would feel if you learned one of your friends was in this situation?”

Mega went quiet for a moment. “I guess…I guess it would be cool,” she admitted begrudgingly. “But that’s different! Giga and I don’t care about that sort of thing, but other people will!”

“You’re not wrong,” said Rung. “Some mechs will care. And there’s not really anything you can do about that. But even if you two weren’t in this situation, mechs would still find reasons to dislike you. It’s impossible to go through life appealing to everybody, and there’s nothing we can do about it except surround ourselves with mechs who care about us and support us.”

Neither Mega nor Giga replied. 

“Would you like to show me your combined form?” asked Rung. 

Mega and Giga exchanged looks. Could they do it again? Could they do it again without music, without the pure, natural perfection of that moment?

“Are you sure you want us to?” asked Mega with a frown.

“I am,” said Rung, nodding encouragingly.

The room was sparsely decorated, and so they didn’t have to move any furniture to clear a space large enough for their purposes. Mega and Giga stood facing each other, holding servos. Giga looked back at Rung. 

“It might…it might take a klick,” he said. 

“That’s alright,” said Rung warmly. 

Giga offlined his optics and felt the pulsing of his own spark, allowing it to fill his frame. It was not music, not really, but it was enough of a beat to start, steady and powerful. 

Their pedes on the hard floor became the rhythm, clicking as they moved in synchronicity. Perhaps driven by the urgency of the situation, they danced more quickly than they had at the party. 

Their sparks echoed with grief, betrayal, despair. Dread. They had thought they’d wanted answers. They were wrong. 

Mega spun back into Giga’s waiting arms and—

Rung gave a cry of surprise. They looked at him—looked down at him. Rung was almost comically tiny compared to their combined form. 

“Are you afraid of me?” asked Overlord.

“Not at all,” said Rung. “Should I be?”

“Maybe,” said Overlord. “Most mechs were.”

“Well, it’s never too late to start fresh,” said Rung. “In fact, I wonder—perhaps we ought to change your designation. What do you think?”

Overlord gave this due consideration. “Maybe,” he said. “But what would I call myself?”

“I think you should take some time to explore that,” Rung suggested. “But if you’re really stuck for ideas, take a look at some of the backup designations saved to your personality core, and see if any of those resonate with you.”

There was a knock at the door, and the twins separated again. By the time Rung answered it and let Shockwave in, they were already back on the couch, sitting beside each other as though nothing had happened. 

“Everyone is fine,” Rung said, to fill the awkward silence. “I think…perhaps…”

But Shockwave was already pacing back and forth, his energy field sharp and agitated. 

“Alright,” he said. “There are already a number of surveyors in Vos, planning for a potential reconstruction. Mega, you will join them. I am told they need guards for the occasional insecticon attack. Giga, you will remain here and complete your education—”

“No!” screamed the twins, in unison.

“Shockwave,” said Rung. “Splitting up Mega and Giga will not stop them from being who they are. It will only serve to cause them to resent you. They will be adults very soon, you know. And as adults, there will be nothing stopping them from spending their lives together—and without you.”

“He’d like that!” cried Mega. “He’s always hated us! He’d be happy if we never talked to him again!”

“Mega—!” Shockwave sputtered. “I am doing this to protect you!”

“We don’t need your protection!” Mega shouted back. 

“Enough!” interrupted a new voice, and everyone turned to the door. Moonracer was standing there, looking fierce despite her tiny frame.

“I told you to stay with Umbra!” Shockwave cried.

“Why? So you could berate Mega and Giga for existing?” Moonracer stepped into the room and strode towards him. “If you weren’t prepared to deal with this, you should never have agreed to take them in!”

“I wasn’t going to berate them for existing,” said Shockwave heavily. “I merely wish to get ahead of any problems—”

“What problems? There are no problems! This is who they are! You’ve been so determined to see them as Overlord that you’ve completely failed to notice that we’ve raised two intelligent and ambitious sparklings!”

“Do you think Cybertron is going to see it that way?” retorted Shockwave, gesturing towards the window. “They all knew Overlord as a war criminal and a murderer. They’ll never give the twins a fair chance—”

“All the other war criminals and murderers got a fair chance,” said Moonracer pointedly. “I don’t see why the twins are suddenly an exception—especially since they’re _not_ the Overlord that we all knew and tolerated.”

Shockwave fell silent. 

_Experiments, mechs whispered. On Autobots, usually. But when there were no Autobots in the brig, Shockwave started looking around at his fellow Decepticons._

_Overlord had been lucky. He had not been given to Shockwave as a punishment, but as a reward. Shockwave had made him better than what he was before, powerful enough to call himself one of Megatron’s elite. Not everyone that went under Shockwave’s scalpel was so fortunate. But there was a difference, Overlord knew, between what Shockwave did for Megatron and what he did for fun._

Mega began to giggle hysterically as the memory ebbed. “You’re a hypocrite, Shockwave!” she cried. “Maybe you worked in a nice office instead of on a battlefield, but that doesn’t mean your servos weren’t just as dirty!”

To their surprise, Shockwave sat down on the couch across from them.

“I realize now I have been unclear,” he said. “My concerns for you are a reflection of my concerns for myself. It is…extraordinarily easy to abandon one’s principles, given the right circumstances. I know firsthand how quickly a mech can fall into practices that they previously considered detestable.”

“Shockwave,” said Moonracer. “That was different—your processor was damaged.”

“But I was not without free will at any point,” retorted Shockwave. “And neither were any of the mechs I served alongside. Rationalizing serves no purpose, save to alleviate our consciences. What I have always believed—and what I have attempted to impart to Mega and Giga—is that we are most susceptible to evil when we think ourselves incapable of it.”

“We always knew we were capable of it,” said Mega flatly. “That’s how we knew we were bad.”

“No,” said Moonracer firmly, circling around the couch to stand in front of the twins. She put one servo on each of their shoulders. “Look at me, both of you. Look at me, Mega. You are not bad. You’ve never done a single bad thing in your life. Being capable of hurting others doesn’t mean you’re a monster, it means you _exist_.”

“You don’t understand,” said Mega. “Mechs like you, and Rung—you don’t understand how easy it would be!”

“No?” Moonracer tilted her helm to the side. “How many mechs have you killed?”

“That’s not—”

“Yes, it is,” said Moonracer. “When I was in my third frame—when I was exactly your age—I’d already lost count of all the mechs I’d killed.”

“What?” said the twins in unison. They had known that Moonracer was younger than most of their friends’ creators, but they had not quite made the connection between Moonracer as they knew her and Moonracer as she had been during the Great War.

“After a while,” said Moonracer, “I stopped thinking of them as mechs at all. They were just targets to hit. Somehow, they became less _real_ than I was—or at least, that’s what I needed to believe. When I killed them, it was for a reason, whether it was my own survival or the survival of my team. But when they killed my friends, there was no ambiguity. They were monsters, cold-blooded murderers. It took me many vorns to realize how ridiculous my perspective was.”

Mega and Giga were at a loss for words. They knew Moonracer had been an Autobot, and a sharpshooter. But they’d never actually imagined her in battle. She seemed so…happy. Kind. Patient. She’d loved them just as much as she loved Umbra, and treated them no differently than the sparkling that she shared coding with. 

“Why don’t we go home?” said Moonracer. “We can deal with…everything…in the morning.”

* * *

The next morning, the twins awoke to countless notifications of missed messages and comms. Giga sifted through his, but he could tell Mega had already deleted hers.

The most recent message, sent very late the previous night, was from their classmate Andromeda. Giga wondered what she could possibly have to say to him. Against his better judgement, he allowed it to play. 

_::Hey guys,::_ Andromeda sounded upbeat, as usual, but also a little shaken. _::So, uh, just wanted to let you know that I’m really glad we’re friends and you definitely don’t have anything to worry about from me. So…you can go ahead and tell Soundwave that I’ve deleted the footage, and then I deleted the deleted file and he doesn’t have to come to my house or tell my creators or anything. I guess, uh, I’ll see you in school! Okay. Uh. Bye!::_

“Soundwave?” muttered Giga, rubbing his helm. Footage? What did Andromeda…had she filmed their combination sequence? Had she taken pictures? It made sense. Andromeda had been holding a camera on the day they’d met, and every day since, until her third-frame upgrades had allowed it to be integrated into her optics. 

But then Soundwave had done something, and Andromeda had deleted it all. Giga wondered if he even wanted to know the whole story. 

The sound of voices from downstairs pulled him away from the other messages. With Mega following closely behind him, he went down to see what was happening. 

Overcharge was sitting on the couch, looking uncomfortable and awkward while Moonracer talked at him and Umbra climbed over his pedes. When he saw Mega and Giga, he brightened up. 

“Oh, good!” he said. “We were, uh, we were worried about you.”

“We?” repeated Mega. 

“Yeah. Everyone. All of us. You ran off and then it got a little weird after you left. Uh.” Overcharge looked like he didn’t know where to start. “Anyway. We’re just glad you’re okay. Did you…did you really not know you could combine?”

“Yeah,” said Giga. “We didn’t. What happened after we left?”

“Um, well, we didn’t realize you’d left. I mean, we thought you were coming back. But then you didn’t. So we waited a while and then me and Crossfire went out to look for you. Stormwarp finally called his creators and we told them what happened. And then they made a bunch of calls and told us not to worry, but nobody really felt like doing anything after that. We thought something really bad had happened to you.”

“We’re sorry,” said Giga. “We just…” He hesitated, wondering if he should tell Overcharge the whole truth or try to keep it quiet a little longer. But maybe it would be better to tell their side of the story, before the memory of Overlord had the chance to turn anyone against them. 

And, oddly, Giga found that he _wanted_ to tell Overcharge the truth. He looked over at Mega, and could sense her assent. 

“It’s more than being a combiner,” he said. “A lot more.”

“What do you mean?” asked Overcharge. 

Telling the entire story took almost a whole cycle, even when they skipped over the parts they were still unclear on. Overcharge listened with wide optics, never interrupting or even asking questions. When they were finally done, Overcharge seemed to be at a loss for words. 

“So…” he said, “you’re actually super old?”

“Our spark is old,” said Mega. “But we’re not.”

“Okay,” said Overcharge. “Neat.”

“You don’t mind?” demanded Mega.

“Nah,” said Overcharge. “I mean, it’s a little weird, but if you guys are the same as you’ve always been, I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

“Even though we did bad stuff in the past?” pressed Mega. 

“That wasn’t you,” said Overcharge. “It was the guy you were before. Right?”

“Yeah, but…” Mega looked at Giga for help.

“I think you’re thinking too hard about it,” said Overcharge. “You’re making it complicated and it’s not. I’ve known you guys since we were in our second frames. You’re not some, some Decepticon superwarrior. And…I dunno, but if the stuff you said about him is true, maybe he’s lucky he got to turn in to you.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mega.

“I mean…he wasn’t a nice guy, right? He was so far gone that he couldn’t even have a normal life. So maybe when he got turned into you, it was the universe or Primus or whoever going, ‘okay, here’s a way you can be happy.’ You know?”

The twins had never considered this perspective before. They weren’t sure if they completely believed it, because what did the universe or Primus care about their happiness, but it was a nice sentiment. 

“If anyone tries to say you did anything wrong,” continued Overcharge. “I’ll set ’em straight. And I’m not the only one! We all—everyone in our class—we all know who you really are. We’ll stand up for you. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Mega weakly. 

The door chime sounded, and Moonracer hurried to answer it. Mega and Giga both froze, wondering who else might want to speak to them now that the truth was beginning to trickle out. But it was not one of their classmates at the door. It was Megatron. 

Overcharge seemed to be dumbstruck by the mech standing before him, but the twins hurried over to greet him. They had always liked and trusted Megatron, even though he never seemed to know exactly what to say to the twins. 

“Are you two alright?” he asked, looking at each of them in turn. 

“We’re fine!” said Mega. “Are we in trouble?”

“Not at all,” said Megatron. “I only thought perhaps you might want to talk. If you’re not too angry with me.”

“Angry with you?” repeated Giga. “No! We’re not!” And it was true. Whatever rage and betrayal they’d felt last night seemed to be melting away in the face of everything Shockwave and Moonracer had told them, and Overcharge’s warm acceptance. 

Maybe the future wasn’t going to be so terrible after all. 

“Uhum, I’ll get going, then,” said Overcharge, getting to his pedes and inching towards the door. “I’ll see you guys around, okay?”

“No, stay!” said Mega. “Megatron has great stories, I promise! I bet he can even tell you stuff about your creators!”

“Really?” Overcharge’s energy field relaxed. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” He looked up at Megatron. “I’m Overcharge. My creators are Astrotrain and Blitzwing. They. They were on Earth with you. At the end. Do you remember them?”

“Of course I do,” said Megatron. A smile slipped across his face, as though he was remembering something funny. “They tried to overthrow me once.”

“They—what?” Overcharge’s optics brightened in shock. “Are you—seriously? Seriously?”

“Tell the story!” cried Mega, pulling on Megatron’s arm and practically forcing him to take a seat. “Overcharge, come sit down and listen!”

As Megatron launched into the retelling of the tale, which seemed to have been made more absurd by the passage of time, Giga glanced back into the kitchen, where Shockwave and Moonracer were watching them silently. They did not seem worried, or angry. They looked peaceful. 

Something bumped against Giga’s knee. It was Umbra, looking for someone to pay attention to him. Giga lifted his brother into his lap so he could listen to the story too. 

Umbra would be getting his adolescent frame soon, and the twins would be getting their final upgrades even sooner than that. But no matter how much things changed, they would still have each other, and their creators, and their home—all the things Overlord had never managed to have. 

Perhaps Overcharge was right. Maybe their lives were meant as a great cosmic apology to a mech who’d never been allowed to have a normal existence. If that was the case, they supposed they’d come out the winners in the end. And if not—if the whole idea was just silly sentiment—that was alright, too.


End file.
